NBA: Ranking all 30 starting centers for 2019-20

The Chicago Bulls are in the midst of a major youth movement, with lottery picks galore dotting their roster. One of those will be manning the middle for Chicago this season, with Wendell Carter Jr. returning from  a thumb injury that sidelined him for most of the second half of his rookie year.

Carter started the first 44 games for the Bulls before he went down with the injury and had a decent campaign, averaging 10.3 points, 7.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 25.2 minutes per game while shooting 48.5 percent overall.

His floor-stretching ability is a work in progress. He was just 6-for-32 (18.8 percent) from long range as a rookie and outside of the restricted area was an adventure for Carter, who made just 80 of his 221 attempts (36.2 percent) outside of three feet from the rim.

He was very good inside the restricted area, making 66.7 percent of his attempts, but only 40.4 percent of his total attempts came from that range. So either Carter was being asked to do things that he wasn’t particularly adept at doing, or his decision-making on shot selection needs work.

Chicago will be banking on Carter, the seventh overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, making a second-year leap because he will be working without much of a safety net this season.

He did show some good signs defensively last season, including standing his ground when switched onto Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray on this sequence:

The Bulls were 7.2 points per 100 possessions better when Carter was off the floor last season and veteran Robin Lopez headed up I-94 to Milwaukee to join his twin brother Brook, leaving Cristiano Felicio — who has done little to show he’s more than a limited-minutes rotation player — as the backup at the 5.

The good news is that Carter showed himself to have a decent shooting stroke during his lone season at Duke, shooting 41.3 percent on 46 attempts from the collegiate 3-point stripe, and was a 79.5 percent free throw shooter as a rookie.

So he’s likely to get better. How much and how quickly are the big questions.